REFLECTIONS ON THE RESEARCH PROCESS
Many texts have been published on the mechanics o f carrying out social science research, with most tending to describe the process as a relatively unproblematic linear progression o f ideas. According to this model a researcher identifies a research
question, reviews the literature, selects an appropriate research methodology, collects their data and writes up their findings in a sequential way (see, for example: Bell,
1990; Borg and Gall, 1989; Moser and Kalton, 1989). More recently researchers, feminists prominent amongst them, have begun to challenge the perception that research is without problems, calling for a more honest, reflexive account o f what actually happens (Marshall, 1986; Reinharz, 1983; Stanley and Wise, 1983; 1993). Indeed, a number o f feminists have published accounts not only o f their research findings but also o f the problems they encountered in completing it (Haggis, 1993; Marshall, 1986; Poland, 1993). In keeping with this growing feminist tradition, this Chapter explores the difficulties and concerns which arose during this investigation. In addition, and with the benefit o f hindsight, some o f the flaws and limitations o f this study are identified. The Chapter commences by outlining some o f the issues which emerged at the very start o f the project, in identifying an appropriate theoretical model and locating appropriate sources o f literature within which to frame the study. The second part o f the Chapter focuses on issues relating to the selection o f the sample, the development o f the research tools and the data collection phase. Lastly, some ideas are offered as to the possible direction for further studies.
When this investigation began, only limited empirical data had been collected on women’s lives as coaches in.the UK and there had been less theoretical debate on this issue (and it is with much regret that I report that this situation has remained largely
unchanged). The lack o f literature in this area is linked partly to the infancy o f sport sociology in Britain and partly to feminist sociologists’ apathy towards sporting issues in general. Although academics had given little consideration to women’s lives as coaches in the UK, a number o f papers had been published in the USA on this subject and initially it was hoped that these would provide a direction for this project. A review o f this literature quickly revealed, however, that whilst some o f the work was informative, it could not provide the necessary direction nor theoretical framework for this study. This was for a number o f reasons. Research on women coaches in the USA tended to focus either on establishing what differences, if any, existed between male and female coaches (e.g. Anderson and G ill, 1983); or quantifying the effects o f Title IX - a piece o f federal legislation in the USA designed to give men and women equal opportunities and resources in educational establishments (e.g. Acosta and Carpenter,
1988). Neither approach offered a comprehensive understanding o f the reasons why
fewer women than men took on sports coaching roles in Britain. This is because a focus on male-female differences ignores the effects o f wider social, economic, political, organisational and historical factors. Whilst the organisational context within which coaches operated in the USA is far more structured and formal than in the UK and hence much o f the research appeared to make only a limited contribution to an understanding o f women’s lives as coaches in Britain (e.g. Knoppers, 1987).
Therefore at a very early stage in this research it was recognised that the theoretical framework would need to be developed from writings outside o f sports coaching. One academic field which was seen as potentially useful was that o f women and
management, because o f the seemingly parallel situations confronting women in the spheres o f paid employment and sport in the late 1980s. Data from the LFS and the OPCS indicated that whilst the numbers o f women both entering paid employment and
participating in sport had increased significantly in the decade prior to 1988, the numbers o f women in managerial posts in general, and in sports leadership roles (coaching being one) had not risen commensurately. This begged the question o f whether an analysis o f the mechanisms underlying gender inequality in leadership roles in paid employment could help to explain women’s underrepresentation in leadership roles in sport. This line o f inquiry was pursued for some considerable time, and ideas drawn from this literature were used to frame the questions in the interview schedule. A later and more detailed analysis o f the literature, however, revealed that much o f it was atheoretical, concentrating as it did on identifying individual
differences between male and female managers (e.g. Boulgarides, 1984),
recommending self-help strategies for female managers (e.g. Staley and Shockley- Zalabak, 1986), or suggesting ways by which organisations could promote equal opportunities for women managers (e.g. Davidson and Cooper, 1984). Few, if any, o f the studies attempted to situate women’s experiences as managers in a wider context, one which took into account social structural variables such as class and gender. Moreover, research on women managers tended to concentrate on their workplace experiences and ignored contextual issues relating, for example, to the home and the family. In this sense, the literature on women and management and that on women and coaching from the USA had much in common, and as the limitations o f using the latter had been identified relatively early in the research process, with hindsight, it was surprising that the limited contribution o f the literature on women and management was not recognised more quickly.
The influence o f the management-based literature on the design o f the interview schedule had major implications for later stages in the research process, and more generally for the direction and impetus o f the project. For example, a large number o f
the questions in the interview schedule were included in an attempt to reflect some o f the concerns within the management literature o f the time. One area which received considerable attention was the notion o f male-centred and female-centred approaches to management. Consequently questions on coaching philosophy and coaching style were included in the interview schedule. However, as no data were collected from male coaches it was not possible to effect comparisons with the literature on male- centred and female-centred approaches to management. Moreover, although some coaching sessions were observed prior to commencing the interviews, insufficient data were collected during this phase for a systematic analysis and hence there were no observational data to support their oral descriptions o f their style o f coaching. Finally, because the perspective eventually moved away from the area o f management, these issues were not developed in the final analysis. It must be said that the challenge o f finding a perspective other than one from management-oriented literature meant that the study lacked direction during the period when the interviews were being
undertaken.
At about the same time that these problems were being worked through, one major related area o f research did seem to offer the potential to make a significant contribution to an understanding o f women’s experiences as coaches. This was research on women’s leisure which, for a number o f reasons, was to prove particularly fruitful. Although there is no empirical evidence to support such an assertion, my own experiences in sport suggested that many coaches were unpaid volunteers and, as such, coaching could be considered in certain circumstances to be a “ leisure activity” . The
1980s witnessed a proliferation o f research on women’s opportunities for, and experiences of, leisure and hence research was readily available on this topic. Papers published on women and leisure in Leisure Studies tended to adopt a theoretical
perspective drawn from socialist feminism and, on further examination, this approach appeared to make a significant contribution to explaining women’s experiences o f leisure. The literature on women’s leisure was particularly helpful in exploring the relationship between paid work and leisure, and between unpaid work and leisure - both o f which were pertinent to an analysis o f women’s experiences as sports coaches in the UK.
Whilst the literature on women and leisure made a significant contribution to understanding women’ s lives as coaches, especially with reference to the effects of fam ily and domestic commitments and paid employment on women’s involvement in coaching, it could not offer a complete explanation o f women’s underrepresentation in sports coaching roles. This was because it could not address issues relating to the mechanisms by which coaches obtained coaching positions, nor those by which coaches sought and acquired higher status coaching roles. What a review o f this literature did do, however, was to point the way towards a socialist feminist theoretical perspective, even if this were to be located in an academic area o f study other than leisure. What had emerged from reviewing the literature on women and leisure was a recognition that gender inequality in paid and unpaid work, together with
discriminatory employment practices, was crucial to an understanding o f women’s lives as coaches. Hence this work spurred an interest in socialist feminist approaches to women’s experiences in the work place, because they acknowledged the effects o f both patriarchy (gender inequality) and social class (capitalism) on women’s lives. In particular, attention was drawn to the work o f Anne Witz because, although her focus was on gender inequality in the work place (specifically the medical profession), she paid considerable attention to the influence o f patriarchal control in the home. Witz tried to overcome a problem o f many socialist feminist accounts o f gender inequality
which prioritised public patriarchy over the effects o f private patriarchy. Her account o f gender inequality acknowledged the effects o f capitalist and patriarchal forces in securing women’s subordination in the home and in the work force.
Initially there were a number o f concerns over the relevance o f any application o f W itz’ model to sports coaching because her analysis focused on the medical
profession, and coaching in the UK cannot yet be said to have acquired the status o f a profession. However, closer examination o f her ideas soon revealed that she does not see her model as restricted only for an analysis o f inequality in the professions, nor did she restrict her analysis to professional occupations within medicine. She made reference also to midwifery,.radiography and nursing - all o f which fall within the same occupational category as that o f a sports coach under the OPCS’ register o f occupations. Although the OPCS classification refers only to employed coaches, the work done by unpaid coaches is often very similar and as such it seemed reasonable that W itz’ analysis could encompass both paid and unpaid coaches.
Although W itz’ model provided the necessary impetus with which to start the data analysis phase, the analysis itself gave rise to a number o f problems associated with the development and administration o f the interview schedule. First, although I was not especially aware o f it at the time, my own involvement in the sport o f hockey clouded my understanding o f the coaching system in sport. I mistakenly assumed that all sports had coaches who worked with clubs, counties, regions and international squads, and that the level at which they coached reflected the level o f coaching qualification they held. Whilst this was the case in netball, very different structures existed in the other four sports studied (cricket, gymnastics, squash and swimming), and I am not convinced that the coaches I selected were equivalent across the five sports. In my eagerness to start collecting data not enough time was given to
researching the organisation and structure o f coaching in the five sports. With the benefit o f hindsight I should have confirmed the equivalence o f the coaches across the five sports with bodies such'as the National Coaching Foundation and the NGBs themselves. Moreover I probably relied too heavily on the coaching handbooks to select coaches to interview. This may have biased the sample too much towards qualified coaches. Only two o f the coaches in my sample had no coaching qualification and although there has been an increasing emphasis on the need for qualified coaches I do not believe, even in 1995, that 90% o f women coaches in the UK hold some form o f coaching qualification. Therefore despite my best intentions the sample may not be representative o f a cross-section o f coaches working at different levels in sport.
In addition to making decisipns about the levels o f coach to select to interview, decisions also needed to made also about the number and type o f sports selected. Again with the benefit o f hindsight, the decision to select five sports and to interview four coaches from each was probably mistaken. The data analysis revealed that there were many more similarities between the coaches’ experiences than there were
differences, and there was little variation in their responses related to the sport coached (the exception being the opportunities for paid work as coaches). It was anticipated that there would be differences in the coaches’ experiences based on the perceived sex- appropriateness o f the sport. For example, it was thought that cricket coaches might report higher levels o f discrimination than swimming coaches. Yet this was not the case, at least in relation to the coaches interviewed in this study, and the data showed that whilst the sex-appropriateness o f the sport cannot be discounted as an influence, the way in which the role o f the coach is gendered in a sport is just as influential in shaping a woman’s experience as a coach.
Another criterion used to select the five sports was their administrative structures. It was hypothesised at the outset o f the project that coaches in sports with single-sex administrative structures (cricket, netball and squash) would report greater
opportunities to progress as coaches than coaches in sports with mixed sex governing bodies (gymnastics and swimming). Ultimately this hypothesis remained untested because I did not collect data relating to the organisational structures o f the governing bodies. Failure to identify differences between the two types o f administrative structure was probably due to the lack o f data collected on this issue. Whilst the interviewees were asked to comment on the relationship between themselves and their NGB, little useful information was gleaned on this subject because relatively few coaches had first hand dealings with their NGB. A follow up study which
concentrated on the administrative processes and organisational structures o f different sports might well reveal differences between the coaches’ progression through their respective coaching hierarchies.
The last point dealt with questions which were included on the interview schedule yet which ultimately formed no part o f the discussion (a similar instance was reported earlier with respect to questions about coaching philosophy and coaching style). At the other end o f the scale not enough information was gleaned from the interviewees on some topics. For example, information on the coaches’ employment history and their household and personal incomes was much too limited, which meant that
inferences sometimes had to be made about their socio-economic status, based on their responses to questions at different points in the interview. As well as neglecting to obtain details o f the interviewees’ employment histories, incomplete details were obtained about their life histories in more general terms. For instance although biographies o f the respondents are included in Appendix One, it was sometimes
difficult to establish the chronology o f their experiences in paid employment relative to their family/domestic situation and o f their involvement in sport as participants and as coaches.
It would have been beneficial to have included questions on issues relating to sexuality such as: sex discrimination, sexual harassment and homophobia. This would have given more opportunity to compare and contrast the experiences o f coaches operating at different levels and in different sports. As few data were collected on these issues, it proved difficult to contextualise the respondents’ experiences in relation to research on women working in male-dominated occupations or in male-dominated sectors o f the labour market. Although the coaches were asked to respond to questions such as: “ Do you think your experiences in sport are related to being female?” and “ Do you consider yourself unusual or exceptional?” , none o f these questions were sufficiently focused to obtain the quality o f responses required on this subject to make for a meaningful analysis.
What I have tried to do in this chapter is to briefly outline some o f the difficulties 1 encountered during the completion o f the project. It would not, however, be
appropriate to end this chapter without making some suggestions as to potential areas o f interest for future researchers (in addition to the issue o f sexuality discussed above). First W itz’ model appears to offer considerable potential for understanding the
mechanisms o f gender inequality and sex segregation in work-related spheres. This study shows that her model can be a useful framework for analysing inequality in unpaid and voluntary work, so that it could be usefully employed to examine sex segregation in the private, public and voluntary sectors o f sport.
W itz’ model would also be a useful starting point from which to examine the
relationship between coaches and the organisations for which they worked. Much of the literature from North America (e.g. Hall and Slack, 1991; Knoppers, Meyer, Ewing and Forrest, 1993) has investigated the effects o f organisational structure on gender inequality in coaching, but few studies have addressed this concern in the UK. For example, do women coaches enjoy greater opportunities to coach in single sex organisations such as the A ll England Women’s Hockey Association (AEW HA) than in mixed sex organisations such as the British Amateur Gymnastics Association (BAGA)? What w ill happen to women coaches’ opportunities when the AEW HA and the HA merge? Finally, the findings reported in this study represent the views o f twenty women coaches drawn from five sports. In order to take this work further, the